


no dreaming

by antimateriel



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Slooow, him baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-04 19:26:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18350153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antimateriel/pseuds/antimateriel
Summary: "I was born at my undoing. There is no before and there is no after."a collection of fragments and memories for gabriela rewriting/revisit of some lost materialcharacter focused stuff





	1. Chapter 1

Gabe was certain that the Swiss winter would be the death of him. His nose was red and wind chafed, dripping into his mustache. He waddled through the snow and ice that had thickened overnight on the courtyard path (and made an internal note to chew out whoever it was that forgot to salt and shovel it.) His broad, muscular frame was softened under layers of sweatshirt and wool, zipped up into a puffer jacket and topped with the hideous hand knit muffler that Reinhardt had proudly bestowed upon him at their last holiday party. Out of his element, he was a glowering, miserable child when he should’ve been a commander, a killer of men. He could only think of how badly he missed Los Angeles.

They had been camped out at the interim headquarters Overwatch had installed out of a lakeside chateau since before the winter began. They were assured that the relocation was temporary while construction of the new Geneva headquarters would be completed by the fall. It was mid-January now and construction delays had stranded them here instead. The thought of it all made Gabe simmer. Fantastic, he thought to himself. All of the hard light architects and omnic laborers they could get and they still hadn’t found a way to conquer budget squabbles and the perils of project management. He couldn’t survive even another week of huddling near space heaters in some creepy old castle. Couldn’t Overwatch have at least put them up somewhere with central heating? They built a chronal accelerator and couldn’t figure out a way to rig HVAC into this shack? Gabe concluded it had to all be part of some cruel joke.

Gabe heard the light crunch of footsteps behind him and hoped whoever was coming would mind their own business. He was quite wrong.

A woman called out to him with a voice that was smoky and musical. “Looking cozy, Gabriel.” He caught a flash of dark blue in the corner of his eye as she whisked up to his side. He kept his eyes forward and continued to waddle.

“Ana, please leave me alone.” He was surprised at the sudden hoarseness of his voice. It was a bullfrog’s croak.

“Don’t be sour. I think the scarf looks nice on you. Reinhardt was very proud of it, you know.”

Gabe knew that Ana could not possibly be referring to the loosely knit amalgamate of woolen lumps he had piled high around his neck. Ana was wearing her Christmas present too, an elegantly minimalist wool cape coat in a rich navy blue that Angela had so thoughtfully picked out for her. Gabe found that he had a gift for getting fucked over and Secret Santa was no exception. He grumbled, “How the hell are you putting up with this stuff?”

Ana snickered. “The winter? It’s like a fairytale, Gabriel. The snow, a castle by the lake, I love it. And besides, you can’t wear stuff like this back home.” Ana twirled and let her cape catch the wind. 

The frigid gust made Gabe shudder. He braced himself so Ana wouldn’t hear the shivering in his voice. “Well I’m pretty fucking sick of Disney on Ice. They really had to ship the guy from LA and the Egyptian off to Switzerland?”

“Well, the difference between you and me is that I’m not willing to let a little bit of cold spoil my mood.” 

Gabe sniffled loudly and wiped his nose on his scarf. “This isn’t a little bit of cold, it’s goddamn hostile to life.”

Ana’s laugh rang clear through the winter air. “You poor thing. Where are you headed, anyways?”

Gabe clipped back. “The cafeteria. I need breakfast.” The cold had made him forget how hungry he was.

Ana perked up, preternaturally bright. “Me too! Well then, let’s hurry up. Maybe a cup of tea could brighten your spirits, and besides...” She pulled her coat closer to her body. “It’s fucking cold out here. Catch up!”

Before he could catch on, Ana had picked up her pace and was gliding briskly across the courtyard. Gabe tried to keep up and caught himself from falling on a patch of black ice. Their friendship was a strange thing, he thought. A never ending cycle of insults and barbs, comebacks and ripostes. It seemed like most of Ana’s entertainment these days came at the expense of his dignity. But he wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. He would never know, even after everything was done, how much he would miss this.


	2. Chapter 2

That same dream again. Somewhere outside Geneva. Those days at the chateau. The bitter cold. The ugly scarf. The blue cape. Her laughter. So far now. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The turbulence of the aircraft jolted him awake. _Looking cozy, Gabriel_. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had called him that. Only in his dreams did he answer to it. No, it wasn’t a dream, it was a memory–it felt wrong to call it a memory. These fragments were so distant, so inconsequential that it was better to treat them instead as conjurings and intrusions. This was his way of coping, he supposed, compartmentalizing this past life as murmurs of the psyche. In the years that followed the end, he would remind himself again and again: _I was born at my undoing. There is no before and there is no after._

His thoughts were cut short by a sharp ache that bloomed inside of his head. It always happened in this order: the dream, the waking, the pain. What they didn’t tell you about your body constantly decomposing and reconstructing itself was the chronic pain it left you in. In combat, the adrenaline was usually enough to distract him. During downtime, he found himself relying on stims, heavy doses of painkiller in auto injectors that were strong enough to down elephants. Between years of chemical super soldier enhancement and the severe pain of perpetually rotting in your own body, their effect on him was similar to the average Joe popping an ibuprofen.

He reached into a backpack in the seat next to him and fumbled around looking for the metal case that held his stims. He pulled it out and clicked it open, examining the contents in the dim, red light of the cabin. It was empty and he groaned.

“Looking for something, old man?” The voice came from the direction of a purple glow in the corner of his eye. Sombra lounged across from him, taking up several seats and furrowing her brow in the light of her holo-displays.

He dug through his backpack again, hoping that he had dropped a dose somewhere in the bottom of the bag. His throat was dry and his voice came out like the scrape of gravel. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere over Chinese airspace. We got a while to go before touchdown.” Sombra looked through her display and raised a brow. “You need a pick-me-up?”

He grumbled at the back of his throat. “It’ll pass.”

“Here, catch.” Sombra tossed him a plastic tube with a bright red cap. He caught it with his right hand. “It’s on me. You shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help, you know.”

He grunted, which Sombra knew was the closest thing to thanks she would get. He knew Sombra was full of bullshit–you never got a favor out of her that she wouldn’t eventually hold against you. But he felt like shit and a stim was a stim. He popped off the cap and plunged the injector into the side of his neck.

“We’re teammates man. Gotta take care of each other. Besides, I know how it feels.” Sombra drummed idly at a terminal display, probably committing some sort of securities fraud.

He felt something terrible bubble up inside of him. He spat out, “How the fuck would you know what this feels like.”

“Easy buddy, I’m just trying to level with you.” Sombra paused her typing. “The weeks after my first augmentation were terrible. Throwing up all over the place, so much pain I couldn’t sleep for weeks. When I wasn’t in pain, I was messed up on stims. Wasn’t sure I’d make it.” She started typing again. “Maybe it’s not the same for you and me, but I know what it’s like to hurt. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

He was surprised at her sudden earnestness–it might’ve been the most sincere she’d ever sounded. He held the empty stim cartridge between his index finger and thumb, letting the purple glow of her displays illuminate the clear plastic chamber. “Do you regret it?”

Sombra snapped back into herself with a sharp snicker. “Regret this?” She held up a hand, admiring the intricate web of circuitry that gilded it. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


	3. Chapter 3

The week before the enhancement subjects began their serum doses, the details of the process and the side effects were outlined for them in orientation meetings with the lead researchers. They would arrive at medbay at 6 AM sharp each morning to receive their doses, with check-ups around dinner time at 6 PM. Slight nausea and dizziness were to be expected, as well as a loss of appetite. Well, a loss of appetite and maybe a lot of appetite as your metabolism would begin to spiral out of control. Your sleep patterns would begin to adjust as well and you might go from needing 6-7 hours a night to 3-4 hours of night. Or maybe you might not sleep at all. Hot flashes might happen. Or the shivers might be so bad you could hardly speak. Jack and Gabe would soon learn that all of these things would happen, along with many other side effects that the researchers could not tell them about, and all of them would be worse than they could’ve ever imagined.

Jack retched violently into a toilet, gripping the sides of the bowl with his knuckles white. Nearby, Gabe was at a sink, rinsing the taste of vomit out of his mouth and trying his best to repress the sudden urge to weep (the severe mood swings were yet another effect they had both come to be familiar with in the past week.)

Swallowing hard, Jack found the words to speak and they came out in a hoarse shout. “Gabe, we need to go back to medbay!”

Gabe splashed water in his face and looked hard and close into his reflection. He noticed that his left eye was severely dilated (irregular pupil dilation would be identified as side effect #14 of the serum) and he shouted back. “Medbay isn’t going to do fucking shit for us, Jack!”

The mood swing began to hit Jack and he let out a whimper like a dying animal. This was cut short by more vomiting. Suddenly, Jack went quiet.

Gabe turned toward the stall. “J-jack? You okay man?” A chill spread through his body and he felt a sense of impending doom wash over him (impending doom was side effect #19.) When Jack didn’t respond, Gabe tore open the stall door.

Jack sat staring idly out of the stall, shaking. He looked pallid, his skin and hair slicked with sweat. He had developed a heavy nosebleed now, his mouth and jaw slicked with red and dripping. “G-g-g-gabe? How d-do I lo-look?”

Gabe’s eyes went wide and he stammered. “U-uhh, n-not good.”

Jack was still dazed, “Wh-wh-what?”

The last thing either of them needed was to panic more. “W-wait.” Gabe hastily wound up a wad of toilet paper and kneeled over him, Jack’s legs between his. Gabe leaned in close to clean the blood off of Jack's face. He noticed that both of Jack’s pupils were like dinner plates, his breath warm, quivering, shallow. Gabe’s hand trembled as he gently dabbed the blood off of Jack’s lips. The blood soaked through the toilet paper to his fingertips, warm and sticky. Jack stared through him blankly, gazing off into somewhere beyond.


	4. Chapter 4

After the catastrophe of week one, the program researchers decided to tone down the frequency and strength of the serum doses, though they were reluctant to slow their roll on the Soldier Enhancement Program. The subjects would never know how recklessly the original program timeline and doses were eyeballed, based off of dwindling resources and the looming threat of the Omnic Crisis. The sooner they could produce a batch of chemically enhanced super soldiers, train them, and ship them off into war, the better. All of this on a shoestring budget as the American military was grasping blindly at anything that could give them the upper hand against the omnics, then failing as they saw their forces eviscerated day by day. Morale declined precipitously–what separated the SEP from any of their other failures at this point? Nothing about it made it seem to be more than just another gamble. Only this time one hundred of their finest soldiers were debilitated with cases of deadly, engineered mega-puberty and physiological shock reactions. While slowing down the experiment in the shadow of the Crisis was a bitter concession, it was better than having no soldiers at all.

Jack was curled up in his bed. The top of his head, scruffy and unwashed, was the only part of him that stuck out from the mass of sheets and blankets that swaddled him. Since the adjustments, the most violent of the side effects had passed, replaced with a severe fatigue not unlike mono. The last time he was this exhausted, Jack thought to himself, was when he had actually contracted mono in high school from the first time he kissed a boy. It was one of the many inconsequential thoughts that drifted through his head as he lapsed in and out of the waking world. He thought of the boy who gave him mono, whose name evaded him. He thought of the farm in Indiana, grass waving and sky blue, so far away. He thought of the night he told mom he was leaving for war, and how she crumpled, screaming. He thought of Vincent, so distant now, an artifact of another life. 

On a folding chair beside Jack’s bed sat a metal cup of cold water and a broken rosary. Gabe had found the rosary, its closure snapped, on the floor of the bathroom. His impulse was to write it off as a punchline–Jack Morrison, the son of Indiana farmers, a good Catholic boy at an impasse with faith. His second impulse was a kind of pity. Gabe recalled all those nights he’d turned over to see Jack laying awake, staring at the ceiling, and wondered if in those moments he was speaking to God. If the Americans were losing, then surely it meant that the end of days was coming. So it must’ve been nice, Gabe thought, to believe in the infinite.


	5. Chapter 5

█████: Do you believe in God, ████?

████: What the fuck kind of question is that.

█████: I’m about to let you in on the secret of life. Just want to clear up any conflicting interests before we start. There’s no going back, you know.

████: Quit fucking with me.

█████:: I’ll take it as a no.

████: What are you recording this for? Making a video scrapbook?

█████: The good scientist keeps a record. Are you ready to begin?

████: [chuckling] So this is about science now. Okay-

█████: Are you ready, ████?

████: Yes sure, just–whatever. Yeah, I’m ready. [screaming, unintelligible] Fuck!

█████: I told you it’d only hurt a little bit.

████: What the fuck are you doing to me?! [screaming, unintelligible]

█████: Just as I thought, this was easier with the rabbits.

████: [sounds of vomiting]

█████: Alright, we’ve had enough for today. 

████: No!

█████: I’m cutting you off. 

████: Keep fucking going!

█████: You’re not ready for this.

████: You don’t know what the fuck I’m ready for!

█████: Quiet. We’re done here. Give me some time to make adjustments and we’ll pick up where we’ve le-

████: You think we have time? You fu-

█████: Don’t you dare rush me. This is my game, ████. This is my art.

████: [heavy breathing]

█████: You’ll get your results. I’ll get mine. We take our time. Understood?

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]


	6. Chapter 6

Not everything had been bad during the days at the compound, a sprawling complex of barracks and installations nestled between rolling, green mountains in undisclosed New England. The mild spring gave way to a long, balmy summer and the soldiers began to grow into their new bodies. As they shook off the last of their growing pains, the results they had all been waiting for were finally beginning to show. Morning jogs became marathons. Olympic level strength records became warmups. Battle simulation metrics saw exponential improvements. Their senses sharpened, the world around them snapping into focus, glimmering and renewed. For a moment, the atmosphere of the place had become euphoric, limitless, idyllic. While the Omnic Crisis continued to ravage the United States, the compound seemed to be a world away. The soldiers reveled in their new physicality, swimming miles in the cold, deep lake that neighbored them and sprinting to the peaks of the surrounding mountains. Gabe would go on to joke about these days, telling stories of how he and Jack had “met at summer camp” (this was partly true, as the compound had actually been a repurposed government retreat modified for the purposes of the program.) It wasn’t to say that anyone had forgotten how war awaited them, only that it gave them all the more reason to savor these final days of innocence.

When Jack and Gabe had entered the program, they were strangers. In fact, they outright despised each other. Gabe thought of Jack as another featureless “Boy Scout looking-ass bitch” who coasted along without a clue or a spine. Jack thought of Gabe as an irrational, incorrigible asshole (which was not totally inaccurate.) The initial tolls of the enhancement process were more than enough to break down their defenses. Living close quarters with someone as both of your bodies shut down had a way of getting you acquainted with each other.

While the rest of the soldiers were taking these new changes in stride, Gabe noticed that something had changed in Jack since recovering from the enhancement. He seemed muted and slightly withdrawn on his better days, totally absent at his worst. When Gabe provoked him with a jab, he no longer shot back, replying with a resigned nod or mostly silence. The cavalier charm he had arrived with had been replaced by grim contemplation. The enhancement had changed something in Gabe, too. Like the others, he was enjoying the results of the enhancement, but this had nothing to do with that. He had found himself developing a fondness for Jack, even a sort of protectiveness for him. He could not have said where it came from. Gabe could only think of the broken rosary, which still sat in its place on the chair next to Jack’s bed for weeks now. He found himself keeping a closer eye on Jack in recent days, noticed how he transfixed on the war reports shown on the mess hall TV, how he would still turn at night to see Jack staring at the ceiling, searching. He felt something dark and fluttering inside of him when he would return to their quarters and find Jack lost again, gazing despondently at a wall or out of a window. _Worry_ , Gabe thought to himself.

One of those sleepless nights, Gabe decided to break the silence. “Do you believe in God, Jack?” He had no clue why he decided to lead with that one, of all fucking things. He also felt ridiculous about being a military veteran talking to his roommate like they were middle schoolers at a sleepover.

Before Jack had changed, he would’ve taken it as a joke and Gabe would’ve certainly meant it as one. _Fuck off, Gabe,_ he would’ve shot back with. Unmoving, his eyes fixed on the speckling of a ceiling tile, Jack replied, “You know, I’m not really sure these days. What about you?”

It was probably the most words Gabe had heard Jack string together in a week. He was startled by his sudden clarity. “I… when I was a kid, I guess. We were Catholic.”

Jack sighed. Gabe heard the rustle of Jack’s sheets as he adjusted himself. “You wondering about the rosary?” It was the first time Jack had addressed it since Gabe had found it and left it at his bedside. “My dad gave it to me right before I left home. Belonged to his dad, I think. You have one, too?”

Gabe swallowed, realizing his throat was dry. “I did. Left it behind a long time ago. Probably at my mom’s house, or something.”

Jack went silent for a moment. Outside, the cicadas crooned. Jack finally replied, “You know, I wanted to say thank you for picking it up. Means a lot to me.”

Gabe wasn’t sure if he was referring to the act or the object itself. For some reason, he felt afraid to probe. “O-oh, it was nothing.” Jack didn’t respond to it, and they both fell silent. In the dark, the space between their beds felt like an abyss.

Jack rolled over to his side, facing the wall. “I’m beat. Night.”

Gabe turned over to look at him and noticed how his shoulders gently heaved. For the first time in ages, Jack slept dreamlessly into the light of the next morning.


End file.
